


first aid

by ell (amywaited)



Series: home of the strange [3]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Anxiety, Cute, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Insecure Carlos, Insecurity, M/M, Mental Illness, Mild Hurt/Comfort, PTSD, Panic Attack, Support, Therapy, Typical Night Vale Weirdness, insecure, like its kinda hurt but mostly fluff, no one is perfect and theyre trying their best, soft, supportive boyfriends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:14:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24011929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amywaited/pseuds/ell
Summary: “I’m sorry,” is the first thing he feels able to say. Cecil looks utterly heartbroken by it.“Whatever for?”“For ruining date night,” Carlos says. This is when the tears come. When he just about catches his breath and all of a sudden is ripped away, because his voice shakes and tears fall down his cheeks and it’s so goddamn humiliating; because he’s strong, he’s supposed to be strong. “I- I don’t know what happened. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
Relationships: Carlos/Cecil Palmer
Series: home of the strange [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1719577
Comments: 11
Kudos: 105





	first aid

**Author's Note:**

> enjoy!!
> 
> kind of takes off based on the end of 'home of the strange'.
> 
> cw: descriptions of anxiety & panic attacks.

The second time it happens, it’s late. It’s dark and it’s late, and the air is heavy, and Carlos can almost taste the way the clocks are ticking, so overly loud but they don’t tell him anything. 

He can feel his heart beating in his chest, in his stomach, and in his brain. He can hear the blood rushing through his ears, like when he would hold conch shells up to his ear as a kid, expecting to hear the sea but it’s actually just every other sound resonating within the shell. It’s like that. It’s loud, and it’s painful, and his body wracks with it.

Carlos hears the stairs creak. He hears the stairs creak, and footsteps begin to approach the door. The floorboards just outside of their bedroom creak too, and then Cecil knocks. He knocks, and he says, “Carlos, can I come in?” and Carlos can’t breathe fast enough to reply. 

“Carlos? Sweetheart?”

His entire chest feels like it’s moving every time his heart beats. 

“I’m coming in,” Cecil says, strong and with the rock solid sort of decisiveness that he’s so incredibly good at. The door opens and Carlos can see the sliver of light that snakes its way across the carpet, because Cecil opens the door as little as he can. 

It’s jarringly bright for all of a second, before Cecil shuts the door again. Carlos’s eyes can relax. Cecil says, “it’s rather dark in here. Can I turn a light on?”

That’s probably the worst thing Carlos has ever, ever heard. He swallows, loud enough that Cecil can probably hear. Says, “no,” and hopes Cecil won’t mind. 

“Okay,” Cecil says. Carlos can just about see the shadows of his feet move across the floor towards the closet. “Can I turn one of the lava lamps on?”

That’s okay. The lava lamps are okay. They’re good. “Yes.”

Cecil turns on the orange one. Carlos can hear the click of the switch. Then, he moves to sit down at the foot of the bed, facing the closet. Carlos can see his silhouette bathed in orange light. “Will you open the door?”

Carlos prods it with the toe of his foot. The door swings open wide enough that he can see Cecil fully, and the light from the lamp flooding the whole room. Cecil’s presence alone manages to slow his brain down just enough. 

Cecil breathes heavily enough that Carlos can just about imagine that he can feel it curling around his shoulders, the way Cecil does when he’s sleepy on Sunday mornings and Carlos is standing at the coffee machine in the kitchen. “Oh, my Carlos.”

They sit in silence for several more minutes. Carlos counts every second in his head, because God knows the clocks don’t, and someone has to. The lava lamp lets loose a bubble of wax and Carlos finds he’s able to breathe with it. 

“I’m sorry,” is the first thing he feels able to say. Cecil looks utterly heartbroken by it.

“Whatever for?”

“For ruining date night,” Carlos says. This is when the tears come. When he just about catches his breath and all of a sudden is ripped away, because his voice shakes and tears fall down his cheeks and it’s so goddamn humiliating; because he’s strong, he’s supposed to be strong. “I- I don’t know what happened. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“You ruined nothing,” Cecil says. His voice is silent and shouting at once, heavy and full and completely, totally serious. “We have a forever of date nights. If one must be postponed, then it shall be. We can have date night again tomorrow. For now, my only concern is you.”

“I still ruined today's date night.”

“And still, I only care for you,” Cecil repeats. “Will you tell me what happened? Was it… something I did?”

And if that doesn’t just send stone cold dread racing through every single one of Carlos’s veins. He rushes to say “No, no, never. Not you. You could never. Never ever,” and hopes it’ll be enough. Cecil is quiet enough to let him continue speaking. “It’s just. When the cup broke. It scared me.”

“I think it did more than just scare you,” Cecil says, gently like he’s talking to a frightened animal, and what does it say about Carlos that it might as well be true? 

“It just reminded me of that time in the bowling alley,” Carlos murmurs, quietly in the hopes that it reduces the shame he feels at admitting the weakness. No one else in Night Vale ever seems afraid the way he does, no one is as jumpy, or skittish. Maybe he isn’t meant to be in Night Vale, maybe he can’t handle it after all. 

Cecil’s eyes sort of melt, in that way they do where it looks like they could drip out of their very sockets if he isn’t careful. “Oh, Carlos.”

Once he’s started, it’s practically impossible to stop, so he keeps talking, keeps talking and talking and talking. “And maybe it’s just ‘cause I’m weaker than everyone else here, maybe that’s why everything seems to go wrong, and go so wrong. Because I can’t handle it. Because I’m weak, and stupid, and cowardly. Because I got scared by a glass breaking. A fucking glass, Cecil. Maybe I should just leave. I don’t think I belong here. I’m so afraid all of the time and I don’t know how you do it!”

“Don’t be silly,” Cecil says, like it doesn’t pain him to hear at all. “Of course you belong here. You belong with me. And you are the bravest man I’ve ever known, Carlos. The bravest, the strongest, the most incredible.”

“No-”

“Would I ever lie to you?” Cecil interrupts. The orange light blurs his features together, makes his nose look like it’s a part of his cheek and his lips disappear into his chin, but it’s still him. 

“No.”

“It doesn’t matter if other people think you are weak,” Cecil continues. “I think you are the most wonderful, beautiful, brilliant person ever. You must remember, you weren’t born here. Things are different on the outside, aren’t they? I’ve been Internet Exploring. I know things aren’t like they are here. People don’t get attacked in bowling alleys.”

“People don’t get attacked in bowling alleys,” Carlos confirms, repeating it because he’s not sure he could get the words out if he reorganised them. 

“You belong here,” Cecil says, reassuringly, “but you are still from the outside. You have purity running through your veins. Night Vale is outside of the realm of normality, to say the least. I would be more surprised if your near-death didn’t have a kind of lasting effect.”

“Pure?” Carlos scoffs. “I’m not pure. I couldn’t be.”

“Why ever not?”

“I’m broken,” he spits, spits like it’s dirty, like it’s cursed. “I’m broken, and defective.”

“You could never be broken,” Cecil tells him. “You’re beautiful, Carlos. And I love every part of you. I would do anything for you.”

The tears begin in earnest, tearing their way through his chest and his throat and falling past his lips with a ragged cry. They come from his stomach, straining the muscles there so tight it’s almost painful. Cecil moves slowly, but he moves forward into the closet too, and Carlos lets himself be pulled into a heavy embrace, lets himself feel Cecil’s warmth, and his safety.

* * *

“Perhaps we should go to a doctor,” Cecil mentions, the next morning, over breakfast. Or whatever could pass for breakfast in Night Vale (which, for Cecil, involves generic brand Cocoa Puffs in a bowl of pulpy orange juice. For Carlos, it means black coffee and the kind of moral integrity it takes not to gag when Cecil begins to spoon out a mess of mushy Cocoa Puffs and orange peel and eats it like it’s some sort of Michelin Star delicacy.)

“What do you mean, go to a doctor?” Carlos asks. He takes another mouthful of coffee. “What for?”

“For what happened last night,” Cecil says. Carlos can tell that he’s treading carefully. “I think it might be helpful for you to, you know, talk to someone. Someone who isn’t me.”

“Am I… annoying you?” Carlos tries not to say, but does anyway. He hates the words as soon as they’re spoken, and Cecil seems to as well.

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Cecil says. “I mean, I think it’d be helpful for both of us if we got some more professional support. I love you so dearly, Carlos, it pains me to see you hurt. I would do anything to take away that hurt. I’ve been talking to Steve.”

“Steve Carlsberg?” Carlos asks, incredulously.

“What other Steve’s do we know?” Cecil asks. He swallows another spoonful of that god awful cocoa-rice puff-orange substance. “He mentioned psychotherapy.”

“Did you tell him about this?” Carlos asks.

“Only in passing. I simply said that you were finding it difficult to acclimatise to Night Vale’s… oddities,” Cecil says, “and he mentioned it then. He said he had heard it was effective.”

He’s got a point. Carlos knows enough on an intellectual level to know that it might be helpful - at the very least, it wouldn’t hurt to try. But his emotional opinion is adamant in that there’s nothing wrong, and he doesn’t need help, he doesn’t. 

“Perhaps we could consider it,” Cecil continues. Carlos watches him scrape the last bits of pulp from his bowl. “I’m not saying make a decision now. Or ever, if you really don’t want to. But maybe we could think about it. And we’ll research it, a bit.”

“Okay,” Carlos says. He tries to ignore how his voice cracks on the second syllable. “I’ll think about it. I guess.”

Cecil stands up to put his now empty bowl in the sink. “Good. We can discuss it again at dinner, if you like. You don’t need to make any decisions yet, of course.”

“I know,” Carlos says. Cecil smiles at him, kisses his cheek, and leaves to, presumably, prepare himself for work. Carlos finishes his coffee and wonders if things will get worse, as they so often do in Night Vale, and when they do, just how much worse it’ll get.

* * *

“I just want you to know,” Cecil says, after he’s turned the car engine off and Carlos has taken several deep breaths in an attempt to calm himself down, “that I’m proud of you. And whether this works or not, I’m proud of you for trying. And that I love you. And that I still, and always will, think you are the most wonderful man in the solar system.”

It makes a huff of laughter bubble out of Carlos’s diaphragm, which was probably Cecil’s intention. It also makes his stomach fill with the happy sort of butterflies, not the anxious moths. “Thanks. I love you too. You’ll wait here until I’m done, right?”

“Of course I will,” Cecil says. He squeezes Carlos’s hand across the centre console. “I’ll always wait for you. Literally, and figuratively.”

Carlos nods. Then he nods again, trying to affirmate something to himself, even if he doesn’t quite know what it is. Then he opens the car door, and he climbs out, and he closes it again. Cecil grins at him out of the window, gives him a huge thumbs up, and blows a kiss. Carlos mimes catching it, and presses it close to his heart, and wonders whether Cecil also felt that rush of comfort and affection.

Then, he turns around to the building in front of him, and pushes open the door to  _ ‘Joanna Fears: Clinical Psychotherapy and Psychology Specialists’. _

* * *

He returns to the car an hour and a half later. It took longer than he thought, and he’s more shaken than he expected, but Cecil is waiting, and that makes it easier.

“How was it?” Cecil asks, as soon as Carlos gets back into the passenger seat. 

He slumps down, like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders. Cecil reaches over to put a hand on his knee and that singular point of contact tethers Carlos back to the tangible world. “It was okay. It was hard. I don’t know.”

“Do you think it might be helpful?” Cecil asks. He starts the engine, pulls out of the car lot. Carlos watches the headlights in the wing mirror blink in and out of existence. 

He nods. “Yeah. I guess so. I’m tired now, though.”

“I’m tired on your behalf,” Cecil says. Carlos wonders whether that telepathic link he dreams about might be more rooted in truth than he thinks. “I’m so proud of you.”

“You already said that.”

Cecil glances over at him. Carlos can feel the unadulterated love in his eyes burning a hole in his very being. “I know. I’m saying it again to reaffirm it. I really am proud of you, though.”

Carlos bites his lip. “I think I’m proud of me too.”

“As you should be,” Cecil says. “Oh, I really can’t believe how lucky I am sometimes, Carlos, you are so incredibly perfect.”

For once, Carlos can almost believe it.

**Author's Note:**

> loosely inspired by my own experiences with anxiety & therapy. could have made this longer but motivation is in short supply right now so we have to make do lol.
> 
> i still want to expand this sort of verse thats building up though, so hopefully that can happen at some point.
> 
> let me know what you thought, and i hope everyones staying safe <3


End file.
